


Before Sandover

by LinbeeH



Category: Jak and Daxter
Genre: M/M, short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 14:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12706440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinbeeH/pseuds/LinbeeH
Summary: Daxter wasn't born in Sandover, before moving he had a mother, a father, and a yakow named Yam. Things change.





	Before Sandover

**Author's Note:**

> A gentle fic, takes place before Precursor Legacy.

Before moving to the sleepy seaside village Daxter had a family. His mother and father, their pet yakow, Yam. When Daxter was very young his father left, and he was heartbroken. His father promised he'd visit and send letters, but after the first year, the letters stopped coming. No one could tell Daxter why, no one knew for sure.

Daxter’s mood soured, and he started picking fights with everyone in the village. One day after a verbal fight ended with fists Daxter's mother caught him crying with Yam. His nose had stopped bleeding, and he'd cleaned his face and hands at the well before coming home and sneaking into the barn. There was still blood on his shirt and sleeves, brown and dry when she saw him huddled up, holding his legs to his chest. She surrounded him in her arms, pressed his face to her chest.

"What happened, baby? Let me see you," she held him out, surveying his bruised face for any longterm damage. When she was confident he didn't need a hospital, she pressed him back against her chest, petting his back as he huffed and wiped his wet face on her shawl.

Daxter stuttered with tears, "D-did he love us?"

She didn't have to ask who, she knew and knowing the answer made her smile. Daxter inherited his freckles from his mother and her smile. He loves it, loves her.

"When he left it wasn't because of you, Daxter. It wasn't your fault. He loves you so much, we both do. He left because of him. I loved him, we loved each other for a long time, but things changed. There was a part of him that needed to go, to see the world, and I wouldn't keep him from that, but I know where I belong." She pulled him back, blue eyes to blue eyes.

"I belong here, with you. I love him still because I know how much he cares for you. Sometimes the people we love are hard to understand, but love is a contradiction that binds and frees you all at once. There are many types of love, baby. Wherever he is, wherever you go, the love we share binds us all together."

So many types of love.

There's the love Dax feels for his mother, a similar familial love for Yam. The kids he plays with from the village, he likes them when he’s not picking fights. When he thinks of his father he used to feel love, but as time went on the memories faded, things changed.

His father never came back.

Over the years his mother told him stories about their relatives all over the world. Explained how he came from a long line of vagabonds and explorers. She told him about growing up in Sandover, a coastal village where his paternal uncle still lived and worked as a fisherman. She described the ocean, the smell of the salt water, the forests and hills that surrounded the village.

Daxter would dream of swimming in an endless sea of black, fish and coral swaying in the surf together.

Before she got sick, Daxter's mother planned a camping trip for his birthday. With a small group of her friends from the village, they hiked to a nearby lake. Daxter's excitement at having a chance to swim was trumped by severe apprehension as he realized swimming in dreams had no real-world application. He’d always been a quick learner though, and once they arrived she taught him how to swim with a few of the other villagers. His heart soared when, after mastering the doggy paddle, his mother scooped him up to declare to the group her maternal pride, right before throwing him back into the water.

It was a day he'd never forget, one that’s warmth permeated the hardship of the following autumn.

That year she and several other villagers collapsed from an unknown sickness, the doctors did their best, managing to keep their patients stable for as long as they could, but they were dying.

One night in winter she called Daxter to her bedside, and as she held his hand, explained that she wasn't getting better, that she was going to be sick until the end. She promised him that he wouldn't be alone, that his uncle would come and take him to live with his family in Sandover.

She stayed holding his hand for as long as she could.

When she passed away her friends in the village mourned with Daxter. It was at the funeral Daxter met his paternal uncle for the first time. The fisherman had the troubling task of finalizing his late in-law's affairs and busied himself with the litigious minutia the moment he arrived. Daxter convinced him to gift Yam to their neighbor, who had helped take care of her during his mother's illness. His childhood home was sold, and his earthly possessions packed into a caravan to be carried to the coast.

"From there, we're looking at a three-day voyage. D'you get seasick?" Daxter's uncle was checking the caravan, securing the cargo in preparation for their departure.

"I've never even been on a boat," Daxter said, "I can swim though."

"That'll come in handy once we reach Sandover, beaches far as the eye can see. There are even a few children you'll be able to play with." Daxter imagined they'd be bullies like he'd met growing up. Fists over brains, the kind of senseless jerk who would happily bully even a toddler to feel good about themselves.

"I don't have a lot of friends."

"All good things with time, lad," his uncle climbed onto the caravan offering Daxter a hand up, "Let's head out."

\--

Daxter missed his mother, missed her smell, her smile. His father had dark brown hair, he inherited the red-blond from his mother, her goofy smile too. Crooked, and full of real joy, spilling out laughter. He misses her laugh. Sees her smile still years later in mirrors, filling him with a sense of bittersweet pride and love.

What would she think of Jak and Keira?

What would she think of Samos? No, wait. She'd hate him. Maybe even more than Daxter did himself, that'd have been something to see.

Overtime Daxter did manage to make friends like his uncle said, good friends even, the best. As the years went on they became his family, and him theirs. He loved them.

After countless folly adventures, and sleepovers under starry skies Jak and Daxter's friendship became indestructible. It weathered arguments, betrayals, innumerable pranks, and more than one ill-fated love-triangle. The culmination of their history tempered their bond into something stronger than anything they had experienced before or since. An unfettered friendship.

After a short while, Jak never went adventuring without Daxter. When Daxter lagged, Jak never strayed far out of sight. They helped each other climb rocks, cliffsides, other people's huts. Whatever they wanted to accomplish, they'd do it as a team.

Communication was hard at first, but they worked on that too. Daxter puzzling out what Jak couldn't say, never doubting whatever it was would be worth the effort. Keira helped, having learned the silent language in her own way in the years since she first met Jak. While Daxter was markedly more proficient at figuring out what Jak was trying to express, Keira's ability to understand Jak's emotional queues transcended competition.

The three of them would spend time together as much as they could, but Keira was far less likely to push off studying or tinkering in favor of exploration and games. She took her studies deathly serious talking often about her plans to understand the ancient precursor technology left throughout the world, to make discoveries all her own. On more than one occasion she boasted of her ability to innovate the outdated tech. Calling precursor ruins not the height of precursors engineering, but stepping stones left to facilitate human discoveries.

Then Samos would ask her to expand on that idea, leading to lengthy discussions the silent and bored pair just couldn't keep up with. Samos too tended only to be patient and encouraging with his daughter. Nobody held it against her, she's not her father's keeper after all. Seeing how much Samos genuinely cared about her endeared the green ogre to those who got to see it. It made Daxter homesick, though never for long.  

One day at a time Jak taught Daxter how to do a handstand, how to roll when you fall so as not to break your bones, how to enjoy the silence. Daxter helped Jak with his school work, encouraged him to break rules, taught him how to fold paper into a glider. Samos would say Jak was the better influence, but Keira and Jak knew better. Daxter brought a much-needed outlet to days before filled with studious mental labor. He brought laughter, and encouragement, and warmth.

Before moving to Sandover Daxter was heartbroken, but he healed on those sunny beaches, found a new family. Like the summer trip with his mother where he learned to swim, the memories of Sandover warmed the worst years of Haven city. After all, it was in Sandover that Daxter and Jak fell in love, where they learned how to be heroes, where their bond was forged.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is not the first fic I've ever written, but it is the first fic I've ever finished and posted! What a momentous occasion. 
> 
> I struggled with wanting to name Daxter's mother but left it vague. God bless tho bc the names I kept coming back to were variations of, "Daxen," or "Daxellen," as to me she's the type of woman who would name her first born after herself regardless of taste or tact.
> 
> This one's dedicated to everyone who didn't ship Jak and Daxter, until they did. To us!


End file.
